Phone Manager II (for Nokia handsets)
Oxygen Software €39 (1 handset), €59 (3), €89 (5), €1599 (100), €6995 (500)
Modern mobile phones are becoming more and more feature laden, and often have a degree of flexibility that is rather astonishing. Unfortunately, in many cases the features are either difficult to access, or inconvenient to access. Thus, some who don’t need or want to carry a PDA may want to use their handset to remind them of a meeting, or to send a text message, but don’t want to laboriously type on the handset’s keypad. Many manufacturers of handsets have software available to access some or all of the features. Some, like Motorola’ s Mobile Phone Tools cost money, and some, like Nokia’s PC Suite, are free. Free or paid, however, most of this software is somewhat limited.
For those of you who use Nokia devices, an alternative to Nokia’s free software is Phone Manager II. This software does everything, as best we can see. We originally wanted it for three functional areas that we needed because we don’t quite need a PDA.
The first was manipulating the phonebook. OPM2 allows us to put in a multitude of names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and notes for each entry, and move them from phone to SIM and phone to phone and profile to profile. The facility provided by OPM2 is richer than that provided by the free software from Nokia.
The second was manipulating the calendar. This can be done directly, or through import and export, and allows you to set, from your computer, meetings, calls, memos, and birthdays, along with the alarms and reoccurrences associated with them.
The third was sending text messages. We send and receive a LOT of text messages, and typing them into the handset would be tedious to an extreme, even with predictive text. Using our computer to type them in, and to respond to incoming messages, makes life much easier. While this facility is adequately presented in Nokia’s software, the Oxygen software does not crash with the regularity of Nokia’s freeware.
We additionally used OPM2 to make sure the profiles in our various domestic and international handsets behave the same way. We had a problem here in that Nokia has changed the base ringtones, and we were missing two tones (City Bird and Going Up) on some of the handsets. Originally Nokia said that they were available on their web site (they aren’t), then from AT&T Wireless (they aren’t), then suggested I mail a letter to Finland to ask them. We finally found a vague approximation of one of the tones on a British web site and installed that, leaving only one missing tone.
Functions we haven’t used included WAP- MMS- and GPRS-related features, and features related to access to Java applications and games as well as to the Gallery.
If you have a Nokia handset or handsets, and want to make more use of their potential, we strongly urge you to look at Phone Manager II.
The Sourcebook to Public Record Information, 5th Edition
ISBN#: 1-879792-72-9 1840 pages $84.00 BRB Publications, Inc.
http://www.brbpub.com/ 1-800-929-3811
If your organization has people doing public record research, you will be a hero if you make them aware of the 5th edition of this book, particularly since its only competitor, The Guide to Background Investigations, is no longer being published. The first 63 pages tell the reader a great deal about public records, and the remainder tells where and how to access those public records. Over the years, as subsequent editions have appeared, readers of AEGIS have been told that each edition is better than the previous. This is once again true. The maps are clearer, the information more comprehensive, and more online website addresses are published for speedier recovery of information and documents. At a scant $84.00 it is a waste of time and money not to have a copy in every research office, public library, and professional library.
